Anon
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: ‘Later,’ she says smoothly and she reaches out to touch your hand briefly, slipping away before your fingers can tighten around her own...Somethings take time HBP RonHermione


**Disclaimer: Not Jo Rowling, please don't sue.**

**A/N: **While I have nothing against Post-Poison Discussions and Confessions between our favorite twosome, I wanted to try something different. **Ron's PoV, HBP, post-poisoning, **second person narration, **RonHermione Implied.** Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

* * *

You hurt.

Your head throbs and your tongue feels like a cotton wad trapped behind your teeth and all your limbs are heavy and motionless.

You feel vaguely like you did once upon a time, having woken after the most important game of chess you ever had the opportunity to have played.

You hurt and there is quiet all around and you think you would be more than content with wasting away in the silence of wherever it is you are but the pain flares and rids you of the notion before it can fully develop and too soon you find yourself mentally categorizing this moment only two notches below Post-Brain waking and only one above the White Queen.

The spring time quiet settles in around you and you ready yourself to slip back into the soothing arms of sleep, which you know already to be the best cure for any ailment, except perhaps heartsickness but you don't want to think about that at the moment.

Eyes still closed and sleep within your grasp, you discover the first disturbance in the form of footsteps, short and quick, the barest rustle of fabric and then, with the first sign of hesitation, the sound of a divider being moved just slightly.

You feel your entire frame tense but you will yourself to draw a deep breath and keep yourself steady in the hopes that this unknown visitor will go away. You are in no mood for company.

But your own body betrays you in the end as you feel your throat, which currently feels as though it has been thoroughly rubbed with sandpaper, constrict. You cough and your hurt doubles, triples, as your body seizes and moves against your will, muscles sore for unfathomable reasons.

Each cough is retched from your parted lips and you fight for air and peace as you struggle to sit up, trying now to move up on the points of your elbows, which dig in to the lumpy mattress beneath you.

A hand cups your shoulder, trying to aid you, and you inhale sharply, catching just faintly, as faintly as you hear the birds outside the window, the smell of parchment and dust and beneath it all the sharp citrus of the soap her mother sends her the care packages she still gets every other week.

It's a scent that comforts you, settles not only in your lungs but in your bones, loosening the cords in your shoulders even as your stomach knots further. You feel the cool lip of a goblet against your mouth, and drink greedily, the water washing away your cough and doing away with the cotton in your tongue.

'You should lie down.' She says softly and you open your eyes even as her hand moves away from your shoulder, and the water goblet is set down once more. And there she is, just as she has always been, wild mess of hair and a strong jaw, ink stained fingers fluttering just barely against the side of your blanket.

She moves back just slightly and you're struck by the sudden fear that she'll leave now, so you decide to comply and settle back against your matted pillow and the lumpy mattress that groans just barely beneath you. You don't want her to go.

You press your lips together, not entirely certain that this is not a dream, like the countless dreams that have been before. You don't know what to say with a thousand and one things battling for first place on the tip of your tongue, ranging from 'I'm sorry' to 'I love you' to 'Why?', but it all comes out is a low rasp of air that is pushed out of your parted lips as you look at her, all soft eyes and a small smile.

You hurt and your head throbs and she is standing not an arm's width away after so very long and all you can manage to say out of a thousand and one things that have been collecting since before Christmas is a hoarse 'Hello' that makes even you wince.

You have envisioned this moment a million times and not once did you envision this, this silence that is not quite awkwardness but not at all comfortable. You have never in all your imaginings pictured this, the quiet of the hospital wing and a lumpy mattress that digs into your back in retaliation for lack of meat around the bone of your elbow and _her_, with watery eyes and a meek smile—nothing about her has ever been meek.

'Hello' she replies and her voice makes something in your chest hitch just a fraction.

You've missed her.

She moves away further, and you can barely restrain the part of you wants to ask her to stay just a moment longer before she sits in the chair your mother left vacant.

Your heart slows and the spring time quiet settles in around you, cushioning all the spaces left between you, spaces that had been gradually filled throughout the years but were emptied in the course of one night, and you feel it like a warmth in your limps. Your head is spinning.

'You should sleep.' She says and you stare at her for half a moment before closing your eyes. You can still see her on the back of your eye lids.

You hear movement and wait to hear her steps, short and quick, retreating, but instead hear nothing.

You risk an open eye and find her still sitting, a book open in her lap.

You think you might have sighed as you close your eyes again, your limbs loosening as the knots in you stomach come undone—if only a little. She's still there.

You almost fall away then, content now with her presence and the slightest sound of a turning page, the spring time quiet holding together this moment of peace that you have been lucky enough to have stumbled onto. But there is something that does not sit right in you; some nagging that is too alike to her, too persistent, making you struggle to pry your eyes open quick enough to catch her staring at you.

You say her name and your tongue feels clumsy, wrapped too loosely around the syllables. It has only existed within your head for some time now and you find you've missed it too.

You look at her, and she does not advert her eyes, instead she looks on calmly, brown eyes bright. You hope she doesn't cry.

'Later,' she says smoothly and she reaches out to touch your hand briefly, slipping away before your fingers can tighten around her own.

'Later.' She repeats with the slightest tremble in her voice but you ignore it because she's said your name. She's said your name and in it you can still find the barest traces of warmth and friendship and it gives you hope that maybe you haven't ruined things so terribly.

Your eyes slip shut and you breathe in deep, taking into slumber the scent of parchment and the promise of later as the spring time quiet seeps in between you and prepares the ground for the recreation of a friendship that till now you have feared lost.

You fall asleep and your hurt is half forgotten.

**End**

**

* * *

**

**Feedback is Love**


End file.
